Michael Kownacky

Milan’s La Scala is our destination for this week’s Sunday Opera (6/28 3:00 p.m.) and their recent production of Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” a 1934 opera based on the 1865 novella “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District: by Nikolai Leskov with a libretto by the composer and Alexander Preis.

Once again, summer came early with two heatwaves already and a third one looming in the next week. To cool things down a bit, we’re turning to the musicals for songs about “summer” on this week’s Dress Circle (6/28 7:00 p.m.), and we’ve been able to cull together fourteen pieces even though, oddly enough, there aren’t as many songs about summer as you might have thought.

Beethoven’s only opera, “Fidelio,” is the centerpiece of this week’s all-Beethoven Sunday Opera (6/21 3:00 p.m.) in a production from the Vienna State Opera with Maylim Bystrom in the titular role.

We’re following up on an earlier program on this week’s Dress Circle (6/21 7:00 p.m.) with a program we’ve titled “Songs of Inspiration, Determination, and Hope. The previous program was in April which has been dubbed the “Month of Hope,” and that program contained an entirely different playlist of songs with “hope” in the title. This time, the songs offer inspiration and hope for characters and listeners, as well as show determination to overcome adversity. We believe that these are things that are truly needed just now.

Most people have heard selections form Bedrich Smetana’s “The Bartered Bride,” but this week’s Sunday Opera (6/14 3:00 p.m.) will give listeners the change to enjoy the entire work in a live performance from the Vienna State Opera.

There are “dog” people, and there are “cat” people, and we are definitely “cat” people. To that end, this week’s Dress Circle (6/14 7:00 p.m.) will be taking a look at our feline and feline-adjacent friends as seen through a variety of musicals.

Jakob Beer is the featured composer on this week’s Sunday Opera (6/7 3:00 p.m.) and his forgotten 1824 work entitled “Il crociato in Egitto” (“The Crusader in Egypt”). Of course, the composer is Giacomo Meyerbeer who penned some 16 operas, and “Egitto” is his twelfth opera, the last of what is labeled his “Italian operas.”

It’s June, and people, especially television weather-people, just can’t “believe it.” We don’t know why not; it happens every year around this time, so that means we’re going to celebrate it on this week’s Dress Circle (6/7 7:00 p.m.) with pieces from ten of the shows that opened in New York in June.

We’re featuring the music of Jules Massenet on this week’s Sunday Opera (5/31 3:00 p.m.) with two of his operas: the beautifully atmospheric “Thais,” and the dramatic “Therese,” both with stellar casts.

To continue with our Memorial Day celebration, we’ve turned to a variety of musicals about American servicemen and women and their experiences for this week’s Dress Circle (5/31 7:00 p.m.).